Igor Zaytsev is a Russian film director, laureate of the “Best TV Series of Channel One” Award, the Golden Eagle Award, winner of “The Best TV Series”‘TEFI Award. He received the Grand Prix at the Moscow International Comedy Festival. He is the director of the TV series, such as “Yesenin”, “Tobol”, “High Security Vacation” and many others.
Irina Vernichenko, “Art&Signatures”: Is there a dividing line between the art of cinema and pop culture?
Igor Zaytsev: There is such a concept as “arthouse cinema” and there is mainstream cinema, and there are incredibly large-scale projects, such as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “The Godfather”. The question arises: what kind of film is “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest“—auteur or popular? Without the author, Francis Ford Coppola, this kind of cinema could not have come into existence, because the director sees and tells the story this way, and the film becomes incredibly popular. When a film fulfills its function—telling a story using cinematic language—and when everyone watches it, there is no boundary or dividing line. It seems to me that this question only addresses the theme of a film.
I worked at the “School of Dramatic Art”, which was led by the great master Anatoly Vasiliev. We studied Plato and Homer, and staged performances based on their texts. One of the most important principles, which I remember and in some sense still follow, is this: “for art and cinema, one should draw not from life, but from art—especially from painting.”
If we speak about how life and drama are structured, I would say that what happens in life follows the rules of drama rather than the rules of life. Life differs from drama in the sequence of “cause” and “effect.” In life, first comes the cause and then the effect; in drama, first comes the effect and only then the cause—the cause-and-effect relationships are reversed. In life, a person does not know what will happen in the next minute. But a drama, a story, is told by an author who already knows the ending of the story and he is telling it accordingly.
I V: What makes a great work of art?
I Z: Leo Tolstoy has an answer to this question and it impressed me: art exists when, at any moment, a viewer or reader can experience and immerse themselves in the same emotions and thoughts that the author expressed. Art is the transmission—through visual, literary, or cinematic form—of the author’s worldview and emotions. I know for certain that this works in cinema. When you sit as a film director in front of the monitor on set, you don’t ask anyone, “What do you think of this?” Sometimes you do ask—not out of doubt, but to reaffirm something.
You understand that you are a transmitter of certain information. What you see and what you are trying to shape will be watched by millions of people, and you are absolutely sure that millions of viewers will perceive what you are doing in the same way. If there are discrepancies—one person interprets it one way, another differently—then, essentially, the director does not even fully master the craft, let alone art. In essence, this is a reinterpretation of that remarkable idea of Tolstoy.
In what sense is art eternal? I understand it this way: art is eternal if, throughout the entire time that a book, film, or painting exists, each viewer who encounters it can receive the emotions that the author embedded in it.
I V: Which of your works could be considered close to contemporary art?
I Z: When we speak about contemporary art, we do not mean that a film necessarily depicts modern events or situations—we mean the contemporary form. If an author lives and works here and now, he may feel that he is contemporary, but formally a director may use trends and movements that emerged one or two generations earlier.
“Y E S E N I N”
Strangely enough, when I think about what “contemporaneity” means to me, it is the project in which I felt the most freedom (relatively speaking, as director does not choose the material; the material is offered to him).
In this regard, I would mention the series “Yesenin“. At the age of 40, I began working as a film director, and “Yesenin” was my first project.
I am a theatre person: I graduated from a theatre school as an actor, worked as an actor, then graduated from the Boris Shchukin’s Theatre Institute as a director, worked as a director in Kamchatka, then continued in theatre, and also worked in advertising. I would say that “Yesenin ” was an important milestone, although it was not easy with this project —especially afterward.
Sergey Bezrukov played Sergei Yesenin at the Yermolova Theatre; the production received a state prize. Later, a novel was written, and then a screenplay was written, based on it. After reading the script, it first seemed to me more like a radio play; besides, I had another offer at the time. It wasn’t the uniqueness of the project—it just happened that way: when I was invited to join, there was another director. The relationship with the first director didn’t work out, and by the time I came in, the whole team had already been formed.
When I walked into my room, the walls were covered with sketches—costumes, designs, everything was already there, and most importantly, there was the lead actor. It would be wrong to say that I made him change in any significant way. Sergei Yesenin as a character had been shaped by Sergey Bezrukov in the theatre; in the series that interpretation was rather adapted than reinvented.
I V: Should there be drama in TV series?
I Z: If we speak about the profession and the function of a director, he always looks for the core of conflict in every scene, and how that conflict is realized. If the audience understands what the conflict is and what it’s about, they respond—they begin to take someone’s side. Conflict is that dramatic tension, without which there is no reason for the viewer to watch a film.
A film presents to the audience themes that involve conflicting viewpoints—that is what I call the subject of conflict. There is one reason to watch a film: as soon as a character appears on screen, their problem must become clear to the viewer as quickly as possible. This allows the audience to connect with the character, empathize with their actions and emotions as the hero is pursuing their goals.
If this does not happen, then, essentially, the viewer does not care. They don’t understand the character’s problem, they don’t understand the goal, and therefore they don’t understand the price the character is willing to pay to achieve it.
I V: What is the main conflict in the series “Yesenin”?
I Z: One important aspect of that time—if we trust historians—was the distribution of social roles in the ideology of the era: Vladimir Mayakovsky as the urban poet, and Sergei Yesenin as the poet of the village.
One of Yesenin’s “pain points” was his self-esteem—his belief that he was not merely a peasant poet, but a great Russian poet, equal to Alexander Pushkin.
I V: Did the poet have conflicts in his personal life?
I Z: It is known that he drank alcohol. This is an important fact, and we discussed it many times. It is also known that he did not drink while writing poetry—when he drank, he did not work. Yet Sergei Yesenin left behind a vast literary legacy, which raises the question: when did he manage to write it all?
A I
I V: Can the ability to accurately convey human emotions in new, AI generated films be lost?
I Z: I am currently working on an ambitious project—a feature film generated with artificial intelligence. I wrote the script together with a co-author. I am absolutely in favor of AI.
What is an AI-generated film like? I’ll give an example. In the past, there were music producers, studios, promotion—you had to study at a conservatory, record albums. Then people appeared who simply recorded a melody on their phones, performed it a couple of times, and suddenly millions saw them—and they became popular. In some sense, this resembles AI films, though the comparison is not exact.
For me, if we speak about technology and tools, artificial intelligence is similar to animation. How are animated films made? First, all the audio is recorded—who says what, at what pace—then the characters are drawn. There is no physical actor, no cinematographer. It is a very similar process to filmmaking with AI. But if we are talking about art, there will not be less of art.
First of all, a great script are still essential—there is no escaping the need for an engaging, and compelling story.
II V: A script written by a human?
I Z: Of course. Artificial intelligence only responds. Now my work as a director has actually become more complicated. Before, I could explain everything verbally; now I have to write detailed prompts for every shot.
As an active creator, as an intellectual, I must demand ten times more from myself and be much more precise about what I want, because AI will reproduce the prompt.
At the same time, just like in traditional filmmaking, you still need a screenwriter, a production designer, a costume designer, a stylist, an assistant director. What you don’t need is a cinematographer, computer graphics, or a full film crew—this significantly reduces costs. But just like in animation, there are successful films and unsuccessful ones. Technology itself is always secondary.
People who worry are those who may- theoretically speaking- lose work, actors. But the first thing AI will actually replace is computer graphics and special effects. For example, staging a car chase in a tunnel is incredibly expensive, but with AI it can look excellent at a much lower cost.
The main challenge for me as a director is exactly what you asked about: how to convey to an “actor” how to perform, how to adjust and refine the result. Now I must formulate prompts with extreme precision to get the desired outcome. Instead of working with an actor, I work with AI, and here the director must be a hundred times more attentive, be clearer, and absolutely sure of what they want.
When you work with an actor—and perhaps in the future this will also apply to AI—you work with something “individual” so that something “general” something alive, emerges. The director gives a conscious instruction: “Do it this way, do irt that way,” the actor follows it, and suddenly something unexpected appears—and you recognize it and say: “That’s it—that’s perfect.”
In cinema, a viewer watches a scene and perceives everything on the screen as deliberately crafted. Often, however, an effect happens by accident, meaning the audience may receive information that the filmmaker did not intend. In an AI-generated film, on the contrary, the author must be extremely detailed and precise. Working with artificial intelligence, the creator sees the result immediately—sometimes within seconds or minutes—which allows for quick corrections and adjustments.
Moreover, AI possesses the vast amount of information and the variability of stories, reminiscent of a panel of the best screenwriters of the past century. This forces me to remain constantly in dialogue with the process. The author—the artist, the director—serves as the ultimate measure of value. We are dealing with composition. I tell the AI, for example, that I need more dynamism, that I need to balance the characters’ positions in a dialogue, or that I want to introduce a theme of conflict in the conversations.
Sometimes screenwriters don’t discuss such things—they say, “Why bother, it’s already clear.” Cinema is collective creativity, and everyone usually works in their own domain. But in AI-assisted filmmaking, the director must control almost everything, work harder, and think more. The director describes every detail, the entire atmosphere—where the light comes from, when, what textures are on the walls, what kind of clouds are in the sky—everything.
